Nature Nurture Controversy
Intuition 2011 Vol 7, 34-38
An Overview of the Nature–Nurture Debate and a Proposed New Paradigm
Austin D. Miller social influences, such as wealth and education, contribute to them. With the modern age, a new dimension of human development has emerged, specifically, the noetic. The term comes from the Greek word for mind, and refers to a person’s individual agency and freedom, but more specifically the ability to think. In this essay, agency refers to the capacity of an individual to choose and carry out any course in the presence of several options. Each of the traditional perspectives (nature and nurture) offers a unique view on the factors that shape the development of personality. However, these perspectives, taken individually, do not adequately explain how or why people develop differences in behavior and personality. At best, when these two perspectives are combined, they provide a better but still incomplete and inaccurate depiction of human behavior. Furthermore, nature, nurture, and the noetic not only represent a scientific schism but also reveal underlying disparities in life styles and philosophies: people typically support theories that reflect their cosmological perspectives of life. Nature and nurture imply moral hedonism (i.e., anything that is pleasing is morally right and anything that is displeasing is morally wrong) by asserting that we cannot control what our genes/society dictate us to do, whereas the noetic preserves moral responsibility by declaring that despite the influences in our lives, we ultimately have the ability to choose. To better understand some of the important implications of the centuries-old debate and the relevance of the noetic for the debate, it is important to understand its origins and how the debate has evolved subsequently. Officially, the nature–nurture debate can trace its origin to 1874 even though it has been discussed or at least hinted at by philosophers in all ages. In 1874, however, the intellectual world
An Overview of the Nature–Nurture Debate and a Proposed New Paradigm
Austin D. Miller social influences, such as wealth and education, contribute to them. With the modern age, a new dimension of human development has emerged, specifically, the noetic. The term comes from the Greek word for mind, and refers to a person’s individual agency and freedom, but more specifically the ability to think. In this essay, agency refers to the capacity of an individual to choose and carry out any course in the presence of several options. Each of the traditional perspectives (nature and nurture) offers a unique view on the factors that shape the development of personality. However, these perspectives, taken individually, do not adequately explain how or why people develop differences in behavior and personality. At best, when these two perspectives are combined, they provide a better but still incomplete and inaccurate depiction of human behavior. Furthermore, nature, nurture, and the noetic not only represent a scientific schism but also reveal underlying disparities in life styles and philosophies: people typically support theories that reflect their cosmological perspectives of life. Nature and nurture imply moral hedonism (i.e., anything that is pleasing is morally right and anything that is displeasing is morally wrong) by asserting that we cannot control what our genes/society dictate us to do, whereas the noetic preserves moral responsibility by declaring that despite the influences in our lives, we ultimately have the ability to choose. To better understand some of the important implications of the centuries-old debate and the relevance of the noetic for the debate, it is important to understand its origins and how the debate has evolved subsequently. Officially, the nature–nurture debate can trace its origin to 1874 even though it has been discussed or at least hinted at by philosophers in all ages. In 1874, however, the intellectual world
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